nVidia mid-range match-up, what should you buy?

1. Nvidias Challenge2. The Competition3. Test set up and specs4. 3DMark 20115. 3DMark Vantage6. Unigine Heaven 2.07. Far Cry 28. Just Cause 29. DiRT 210. Technical Assessment & Conclusion11. View All Pages

Many nVidia fans will be wondering which card to be spending their hard-earned cash on. KitGuru lines up the competitors, points them toward the edge of the cliff, and drops the Labs' white handkerchief.

Up until the GTX460 was launched, no one apart from hardcore NV-lovers were really interested in Fermi. Many journalists were surprised at the massive levels of power required and the pricing didn't seem to make a lot of sense. nVidia went back to the drawing board. After several months of Jen Hsun beating his engineering and driver teams with broken bottles, we finally gave a very warm welcome to the GTX460.

While AMD has done a great job of competing in the mid-range market recently – this was, traditionally, the nVidia strong zone.

From the Ti200 and Ti4200, through the 5600 and 6600 cards to more recent times, nVidia unveiled generation after generation of winners in this market. You only need to look across at the statistics on Steam to see what we mean. Steam maintains amazing statistics about game users – and here you can see the movement from green to red from DX9 to DX11.

Steam is 100% independent and the results you see are taken from a massive pool of data. nVidia's challenge is simple. Follow up the GTX460 with something better than the GTS450. That card could be the GTX550, as long as it can beat off its brethren.

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